Kunal Shah, Goldman Sachs MD at 27, partner at 31

Of Goldman's list of partners, announced yesterday, 31-year-old Kunal Shah is the man everyone's talking about. Shah got the news about his promotion aged 31. It will become effective the day before his 32nd birthday.

Shah joined Goldman aged 21, straight after graduating from Cambridge University, where he studied maths at Gonville & Caius College.

What makes Shah so special? His LinkedIn profile says he was a macro prop trader at Goldman until 2007 and has been an emerging markets trader ever since.

We suspect that Goldman felt that it had to promote Shah just to keep hold of him. The firm has a history of losing its top traders to hedge funds. Tudor Capital has been sucking up macro specialists like Shah and hired Nick Bhuta, Goldman's then head of Eurogovernments bond trading last February. In July this year, Paul Savini Jr, who managed a team of emerging markets traders covering the CEEMEA region at Goldman, quit for BTG Pactual, which is busy hiring for its internal hedge fund. Plenty of other places would like Shah's talent. Goldman Sachs has just secured it.

[Addendum: It's been pointed out that there are two Kunal Shah's at Goldman Sachs, the other being a young MD in Goldman's mortgage strategies group in New York. We suspect that this may have caused some confusion and mistakenly addressed congratulatory emails over the past few days.]